Struggling schools could come under the control of more successful headteachers who will be able to make changes to the curriculum and staffing under "tough, rigorous" plans for improvement, the education secretary, Michael Gove, said yesterday.

He spoke ahead of the publication today of league tables that will reveal how many schools are failing to meet the government's basic target for GCSE results.

In a white paper published last year, the coalition raised the threshold for schools to 35% of pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths. Schools which fall short, and also fail to achieve above-average progress in English and maths, will be considered underperforming.

Gove said yesterday that these schools would get extra resources but would also be required to work with government on a strategy to improve. "Those plans will involve weaker schools being taken under the wing of high-performing schools, entering academy chains, changing the way they work, implementing reforms to the curriculum and staffing and putting in place new, tougher approaches to discipline and behaviour," he said.

This will be led by the government's new schools commissioner, Elizabeth Sidwell, a former headteacher and chief executive of three London academies.

Ahead of the publication of the school performance tables, Oxford University underlined the intensity of competition for university places by announcing it was adopting the A* grade at A-level as part of its conditional offer for a range of maths, science and engineering courses.

Students applying to study maths and some joint honours courses such as maths and philosophy will be required to gain two A* grades, while candidates for physics, chemistry and biological sciences will need at least one. The requirement will be introduced for 2012 entry.

Other elite universities including Cambridge, Imperial and UCL have already begun using the A* but Oxford chose to wait because of concern over the accuracy of teachers' predictions.

The government is also publishing data on how schools spend public money, which is intended to encourage more efficient spending.

The figures show a wide variation in spending between schools – with no correlation to pupils' attainment.

Schools spend most of their money on education staff but £9.2bn goes to other areas including catering, back office costs and energy bills.

In 2009-10, schools spent £2.1bn on premises, including buildings and grounds maintenance, cleaning and caretaking.

Primary and secondary schools spent about £2.6bn on administrative staff, administrative supplies and bought-in professional services.

Education department officials have identified many cases in which schools have spent excessively on photocopiers.

One Essex school faced a hefty bill when it renewed a photocopier lease, after the previous balance was refinanced, compounding the interest. The school would have ended up paying £25,000 over five years.

The average cost of energy per school is £27,000, though many secondary schools' bills top £80,000. Schools' consumption of energy has grown for the last 20 years.

In last year's school league tables, 440 schools failed to hit the previous government's target of 30% of pupils getting five good GCSEs including English and maths.

For the first time, the school league tables also chart schools' performance by the proportion of pupils who get the new "English baccalaureate", awarded to those who achieve English, maths, a science, a foreign language and a humanity such as history or geography. The new measure is intended to reward schools that offer a broad but academic curriculum.

Ministers say headteachers are responding by looking to encourage more children to study languages. The tables also provide data for A-level scores and absences. But academics at the Institute of Education said the English bac overlooks subjects such as music, art and religious studies.

Prof Graham Welch said: "We're surprised by the omission of certain subjects which currently form an important part of the curriculum."

Of the 4.9m GCSEs passed last summer, 1.4m were in subjects not related to the proposed baccalaureate, Welch noted.

Andy Burnham, Labour's shadow education secretary, said: "Labour supports academic rigour, which is why we included English and maths in performance tables and promoted an increase in the takeup of separate sciences.

"But we also support student choice which this prescriptive and narrow English bac will take away.

"This government preaches autonomy and choice, but its actions are top-down and backward-looking."